Follow Barack Obama prior and during his tenure as the 44th President of the United States. Read about my personal observations along with every day facts as they happen. This blog will only submit factual information about the first black President, now in his 2nd term of office.

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Saturday, September 5, 2009

Written by the Editor of the 'Obama in the White House' blog... James

President Obama keeps pushing on. He has just announced a plan that would make it easier to save money. How? A new idea, to turn tax refunds into savings bonds. It is a method to help encourage workers to try and save more of their paychecks. So why is it necessary now to start saving? Borrowing is now rising and people are going deeper in debt. Not enough money, if any at all these days are going into savings for a retirement. People will be unable to sustain their families, after years and years of hard work, and nothing to show for it.
President Obama also wants to make it easier for employers to automatically enroll workers into retirement plans. Presently, there are many paper-work hurdles in the way for employers to offer such an option to employees. By 2010, you may be able to convert your tax refunds into U.S. Savings bonds.
Now, many people are so busy these days that they even forget to schedule vacation. Another idea would be to convert the unused vacation time that you may loose, and sick days that are not taken into 401K money. It still seems to be a good idea to put money into your 401K. Lost funds due to the economic colapse are now rebounding. In the long haul, a 401K savings plan is an excellent idea, especially if the economy rebounds as it should under President Obama. Now you will not loose any income. Many people will forgo taking a vacation to save the money and put it into savings. That may be the only way they could presently save, but at least they will have something. Employers will not have to worry any longer about employees not taking vacations. There will no longer be a need to keep track of it from an employer standpoint. As long as you qualify for a vacation, you now would have the option to take the vacation or automatically put the dollar value of your vacation in your savings if you do not take your vacation.
Why is this important, especially now with the recession in full swing? Employers can not longer keep your unclaimed vacation value as a savings to the company. Even before the recession, people had a hard time saving. When they were working good, people would spend the extra money on vacations and purchases, and usually these vacations and purchases were over than what the buyer could really afford. Credit card bills were skyrocketing even when everyone had jobs.. Now that a vast percentage of these credit card spenders are now out of work, they cannot afford the credit card payments. Now, vacations are out, but even in these trying times, people must still try and save.
The situation we find ourselves in these days is purely a test of our desire to succeed in the future. It is true that we may 'have bitten off more than we can chew' these days, but somehow people must find a way to turn their lives around, and not let the economic condition of today destroy their lives. Time is of the essence. Savings is of the uttermost importance these days, even when people can't seem to afford to go on vacation, there still may be a way.
This idea from President Obama is just another testament that he is forging his ideas on, in hopes to make everyone's lives better down the road.
Why are we in this dire situation with the 2 wars raging on and the economy in collapse?
President Obama's plate seems full these days, as he has so much to do. So did other Presidents, but they elected to take the easy road and concentrate on isolated issues. For example, President Bush centered his attention after 9/11 to defeating terrorism, but took a road that most likely President Obama would have never taken, and that was to invade Iraq. If President Obama was president back in 2001 when peoples lives changed forever in the United States because of 9/11, I truly believe that the war in Afghanistan would have been over by now, not just really starting to build strength, over 9 years since the terror in New York City. Osama bin Laden would have been routed out, and allot less lives would have been lost. President Obama could have been a peace time President, but instead could take no other course than to pick up where President Bush left off, and that was to figure out a way to get U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan in a controlled withdrawal, where both countries would be now self-sustaining with abilities to governern thier own countries, without the interaction of terrorism.